Charles Edward Smith's piece, "A Few Thoughts on the Google Books Library Project", addresses the escalating sense of panic among libraries that has arisen because Google is on the forefront of digitization before the supposed information professionals got on board. He reassures us, however, that putting literature and knowledge online provides a wider platform for access. Instead of rendering academic libraries obsolete, the Google Books Library Project serves as a model for the "successful transfer of knowledge". Building online information resources will actually liberate scholarship and research from traditional barriers of access like physical proximity, scarcity of resources, interlibrary loans, etc. He stresses that material that is not digitized will no longer count; people rely almost solely on digital resources, and anything that remains only analog will fall by the wayside; in fact, analog-only material can be said not to exist in the developing world of information technology. Smith is excited by the possibilities digitization presents, and encourages professionals not to be afraid of it but to embrace it wholly. The problem I see with our brave new world of information, however, is that it can limit the scope of one's research. The infinite amount of information available online is governed by search terms defined by the user and his/her preconceptions about the material, and as such can lead to the researcher wearing "blinders", as it were, through specifically tailoring his/her search to exclude "extraneous" results. This specificity can inhibit exposure to material the researcher might not have thought of as relevant, but may be nonetheless.
Meanwhile, in Europe, librarians fear the America-centric nature of Google. When trying to build the European Digital Library in order to provide wide access to out-of-print and old texts, libraries have struggled with alliances with the internet giant. It seems that public funding is sparse or non-existent, and the project has turned toward private funders to get the Library online. This, of course, involves Google because it has already dealt with publishers and book sellers during its quest to put books online. Doreen Carvajal's article "European libraries face problems in digitalizing" brings the question of Google's apparent American bias into focus. I'm not surprised that, as an American, I had absolutely no idea that this was the case. Google's tendency toward American information would seem to contradict the mission of the European Digital Library; it seems that the company needs to be on board to make anything happen, however. The relationship between providing a free, online and public library and operating in a world where private money seems to control what goes on is still an unsolved point of tension.
While both of the above-mentioned articles display a little theoretical hand-wringing over what a 21st century library will look like, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas got its hands dirty by building one of its own. Jason Vaughn's article "Lied Library @ 4 Years: Technology Never Stands Still", breaks down the practical steps necessary to create a connected, efficient, and relevant
library space. From actual PC replacement, building staff competencies on both hardware and software, managing physical space, keeping systems healthy, and preventing loss, to developing an ongoing plan to maintain relevance in a rapidly changing information environment, it seems that UNLV's librarians have been awfully busy. Some of the technological changes they made back at the beginning of the millennium are now laughably and thankfully obsolete; the prevalence of "community use" policy makes me think that the public libraries weren't as connected as they were today; widespread wireless connectivity was still a long way away and so they needed to install lots of "hot jacks"; Deepfreeze was a new technology; open source software was almost unthinkable. However, this article displays how an honest recognition of the field's evolving nature is baseline necessary to implement effective change. It takes a lot of effort, and a lot of money, but is less expensive than refusing to change at all.
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